Refocillate
by Sydney Z. Hampshire
Summary: Avalanche have got together for their annual reunion, and when Vincent's shirt ends up soaking wet he has to go find a new one, though he ends up with an old one and many old memories. Implied Valenwind. Genre is vague.


**AN: FFVII dribble, the scent scene was going through my head, I just filled it out a bit. Got some Valenwind undertones in there too.**

**Refocillate**

"I'll be right back down," he told Cid and Yuffie's pleading faces, "But you can't expect me to spend the rest of the night soaking wet like this can you?"

It had been an accident.  
No one was entirely sure what had happened.  
But it was definitely and accident, if it hadn't been, Vincent wouldn't have had his friends crowding around him apologising all at once. It wasn't a big deal, it was red wine down a white shirt, but that didn't make it a big deal, with friends as boisterous as his, Vincent had pretty much given up the idea of having particularly expensive clothes, and besides that, was there really any point to them? Who saw them? Who cared?  
…Well they did feel nicer…  
But that wasn't the point!

His room was tidy, neat, but that didn't help disguise the bubbling paint on the walls or the damp getting in by the window. He'd get around to redecorating one day, but he'd been so rarely here before… the floorboards creaked, he wondered when they'd give in and strode to the salvaged chest of drawers opposite the bed, the wardrobe had been a no go, it had been burnt in the huge fire place down stairs ages ago. There was laugher downstairs, Vincent, and indeed most of Avalanche, had been a bit worried about coming here to celebrate their 7th 'anniversary' of saving the world, but that was what had been agreed, each year, in order of joining the group, they went to a different person's home. Cloud just got to chose where he wanted to go: that usually meant snowboarding and snowball fights for the entire time. Each year things seemed to be a little different, you'd never know who was talking to who, if Cid and Tifa would scream at each other the whole time, or if Cloud would be in a good mood, would Yuffie actually behave (for the record, that has yet to occur)? The only things that seemed to be predictable were the annual "Oh lord! Grab Cid before he kills her!" fight that the young ninja always seemed to cause, the retelling of old stories that everybody already knew but listened to anyway because they got to bring up all the old embarrassing points the teller wasn't going to tell, "Ya remember that Dragon I took down all by my self!?"  
"Yeah you lost both eyebrows and the seat of your pants!"  
"…I still won though didn't I!?"  
The consumption of alcohol stayed much the same, their friendship seemed to get better, or maybe things generically were getting better, stress levels were down again, even Cloud was beginning to shake off his depression, though Tifa wasn't helping matters, she was always flirting, but that was so common everyone ignored her now…

Vincent sighed, what had changed? He didn't seem to find the time to talk to Cid anymore, he really should, but one or the other of them just seemed to be busy during the year and at the party… Well Cid was hard to keep up with, then he was too drunk, then Vincent just ended up sitting by him to make sure no one pulled any pranks on him now he was sound asleep. "I'll drag him away from the others," he decided, "I want to chat with him," promising this to himself he continued his hunt for a clean shirt with one hand, while unbuttoning his dirty shirt with the other, this sounds easy, but having one metal gauntlet rather complicated the matter. His claw snagged, he sighed and stopped unbuttoning to detach it without tearing anything, the article of clothing he ended up pulling out of the draw was from right at the bottom, it was black, but there were underlying patches of rusty brown hiding in the fibres, it was left at the bottom of the draw normally. Vincent didn't wear it anymore. Now he gazed at the long forgotten shirt like he didn't even know what it was. He swallowed, ignored his friends calling up to him from downstairs, the light sound of someone finally getting Cloud to crack up, the young man's laugh was a lovely sound, it was a shame Vincent was being too nostalgic to notice.

Shivering slightly he rubbed the fingers of his bare hand over the old material, it felt so familiar, he brought the shirt hesitantly up to his face, took a breath of it's old scents, it held in it's black folds the tang of salt and sweat; the coppery twist of blood; the acridity of gun smoke with the lingering tendrils of cigarette smoke mixed in, it held the sent of a hundred and more men, women and wild beasts seen slaughtered, it smelt of alcohol: beer, wine… champagne. It smelt of sex, anger, death, and the strong soap of that woman in Kalm who'd run the B&B and had been kind enough to wash their clothes, it smelt of campfires and wood smoke, and resin and days spent sleeping in tents in damp woods, of fatigue and panic and despair. It smelt of Mako.  
Vincent sighed, it would take many washes before all those memories were rinsed away for good, if only things like the jokes, laugher, comfort, the good times were as clingy as the bad things, but bad things are more likely to have a scent, Vincent realised, and he was grateful for the good things that his old shirt did remember, he stood up, held it up to the dim light of early evening filtering through the window, it was clean but did it look clean?  
Enough, he decided, slightly stained… He shrugged off the white shirt, left it where it lay, and hurried out, putting on and buttoning up the old one as he went.

Maybe it was the shirt, maybe it was coincidence, but when Vincent hurried to the top of the stairs and looked down, Cid was standing by the door, he was looking at one of the old pictures on the wall, squinting more like, it was hard to see the image nowadays, the gunman smiled reflectively, the pilot, standing there, slightly hunched in his concentration, hands on his hips, extinguished cigarette hanging from his lips, looked much like he did the first time Vincent ever saw him: hunched over a hatch in the #26 rocket, "Highwind," he said, not loudly, but Cid turned anyway, grinning, though he seemed puzzled, "That looks familiar," he said when Vincent had come down to him, "I didn't think ya'd still have that old thing."  
"It's not too bad is it? It's just the first thing I found," not exactly the truth, but not really a lie either, Cid just shrugged, "I dunno, looks fine to me. Heh, brings back memories though, don't it?" Vincent felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as Cid's fingers ran a trail up his chest, lingering over the buttons on the collar, he looked thoughtful, almost sad, like the last time he'd made the same movements, when he looked up though, the smile was different, not so hungry, "We've got time to talk about old times later," he said, dropping his hand, "Lets get back to the others shall we? They might start talking if we're away too long," Vincent shook his head at Cid's retreating back in disbelief, but followed his advice anyhow, after all, he was right, they would be time later… Not too much later, Vincent hoped.


End file.
